Business
Investar Holding Corporation Announces 2021 Second Quarter Results
BATON ROUGE, LA / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2021 / Investar Holding Corporation ("Investar") (NASDAQ:ISTR), the holding company for Investar Bank, National
About this update from Investar Holding Corporation
[{"type":"text","content":"BATON ROUGE, LA / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2021 / Investar Holding Corporation (\"Investar\") (NASDAQ:ISTR), the holding company for Investar Bank, National Association (the \"Bank\"), today announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2021. Investar reported record net income of $5.7 million, or $0.53 per diluted common share, for the second quarter of 2021, compared to $5.4 million, or $0.51 per diluted common share, for the quarter ended March 31, 2021, and $4.3 million, or $0.39 per diluted common share, for the quarter ended June 30, 2020.On a non-GAAP basis, core earnings per diluted common share for the second quarter of 2021 were $0.53 compared to $0.49 for the first quarter of 2021 and $0.32 for the second quarter of 2020. Core earnings exclude certain non-operating items including, but not limited to, gain on sale of investment securities, change in the fair value of equity securities, and acquisition expense (refer to the Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures tables for a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP metrics).Investar Holding Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer John D'Angelo said:\"I am pleased to announce another successful quarter for Investar with record net income of $5.7 million. We are excited to have completed the acquisition of Cheaha Bank and operational conversion in the second quarter. In line with our stated strategy, we continued to reduce our cost of funds by 13 basis points through an improved deposit mix. We expanded our owner-occupied commercial real estate portfolio as we remain focused on relationship banking and growing our commercial portfolio. As the economy recovers from the pandemic, we remain confident in the overall credit quality of our loan portfolio and continue to experience minimal loss from charge-offs. Loan yield improved in the second quarter, however, we did experience compression of our net interest margin due to excess liquidity of approximately $230 million. This excess liquidity will continue to put pressure on our net interest margin as we work to deploy it through loan growth and investment opportunities. Investar continues to invest in improved banking technology as we continue to see a shift in customer behavior with the use of technology. We continue to evaluate our branch network and look for opportunities that will further improve our...